September 4, 2025 • 22 mins
September is a natural reset point – a chance to reflect, realign, and recommit to what matters most. In this special re-air, Mel Robbins shares powerful lessons on overcoming procrastination, managing anxiety, and protecting your peace.
From hitting rock bottom to discovering the “5 Second Rule” and the “Let Them Theory,” she opens up about the tools that helped her turn breakdowns into breakthroughs.
Together, we explore:
- Why courage isn’t the absence of fear, but action in spite of it
- The simple 5-second habit that can change your life
- Why “let them” is the mindset shift that restores your power
Don’t miss an episode – subscribe now to catch new episodes every Tuesday and bonus content every Thursday. And watch full episodes on YouTube every Wednesday.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
September marks a fresh start, not just for students, but
for all of us. It's a chance to reset, refocus,
and reconnect with what matters on my legacy. I few
guests have captured that spirit, and better than the one
and only Mail Robins. Here's some of her best advice
on overcoming procrastination, managing anxiety, and protecting your peace.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Mail, your career is rooted in reinvention and in resilience,
but you've also shared that you hit rock bottom and
that was your catalyst for change. Can you tell us
about that.
Speaker 3 (00:33):
I screwed up a lot of stuff. I mean, I
had adhd in dyslexia and was not diagnosed till I
was forty seven. And when that happens to you, what
you develop is anxiety. And so I had a chronic
struggle with anxiety as a young mom. When Sawyer was born,
I had severe postpartum depression. I could barely even hold
(00:55):
her for the first three months of her life because
of the medication and the severity of what I was
dealing with, and it impacted our relationship. And when I
was forty one years old, I was sitting here listening
to Sawyer talking about the radio show, and I'm so
(01:18):
thrilled that she has a wonderful memory of it because
that was during a moment in time where my life
was falling apart. And when that happens to you, as
a parent, you do everything that you can to try
to shield the reality of what's happening from your children,
because that's not their burden to carry. And what was
happening for us is my husband had gone into the
restaurant business and it was really good until it wasn't.
(01:40):
And at the age of forty one with three kids
under the age of ten, so you know, I'm gonna
have to do the math. You were under ten years old.
We were eight hundred thousand dollars in debt and leans
on the house, and I was rising to the moment
like a dysfunctional human being. I was drinking myself into
the ground. I was blaming everything on my husband, right
(02:02):
because he tried to do this and the simplest things
like getting out of bed, opening up bills, asking for help.
I couldn't make myself do any of it. And I
was the worst parent. I mean there were times where
she would come downstairs and this I know you do remember,
(02:25):
and she would find Chris and I a sleep in
the living room chair because we had passed out from Bourbon,
because we were trying to just suppress all the fear
because it was just so overwhelming. I mean, when you
can barely put gas in the tank and food on
the table, I mean, that's a cute level of stress.
And then you add on to it the sense that
(02:47):
you're failing your kids and you're about to lose everything.
And so for me, it was paralysis. And what happened is,
you know, I have learned from from people who are
first murdered that researched this. There's a saying in addiction
treatment and psychiatry that people only get sober when being
(03:09):
drunk is harder than facing the things that you're scared
to face. And what I've also learned about myself and
human beings in general, is people only change when they're
ready to change. And if somebody in your life is
not changing or they're exhibiting challenging behavior, it's typically because
(03:33):
they can't right now. There's some skill that's missing, there's
hope that's missing, and for me, that was a big one.
What was missing for me is this hope that anything
that I did would actually matter, because when your problems
feel that big, like, what happens is despair sets in
and it's very hard to motivate yourself when you feel
like it's not going to matter anyway. And that's how
(03:54):
I felt, and just.
Speaker 2 (03:55):
A fall up question and what did anxiety mean to you?
Speaker 3 (03:58):
And what does it mean to you today? So anxiety
then was this wave that would hit me and paralyze me.
Paralyzed me. It was like being nervous about something, but
then you can't turn the nerves off. And anxiety has
a purpose. I mean, if you and I are driving
down the road and a truck swerves in the lane,
(04:19):
your body floods with adrenaline, your heart starts to raise,
and you immediately turn the wheel. That's anxiety. It's an
alarm in your body, and it's playing an important role.
It signals you that there's something that you need to
pay attention to. Now I didn't understand that nobody does.
And so what I of course did is I would
feel these stressed out feelings and then I would go
up in my head and I would start to cycle, well,
(04:41):
what if this happens and what if that happens? And
when you do that you make it bigger and bigger
and bigger and bigger, and then it becomes not a feeling,
but it becomes the state in which you are going
through life. Because what happened for me is that alarm
would go off and I'd feel the wave of anxiety
because I'm eight hundred grand in debt. I basically like
(05:01):
feel like my life is about to implode. And so
what do I do? I rot in bed, I stare
at the ceiling. I think about all my problems. I
then hit the snooze button, which, by the way, is
making procrastination the first decision of your day. I mean,
I mean, how are you going to win in life
if your first decision is I think I'll just avoid
getting out of bed. And what happened is I would
(05:24):
literally hit the snooze button four or five times in
the morning, and then these guys would miss a bus.
You probably don't remember this, but then I would thank God,
and then I would come racing out of the bedroom
like a lunatic because they would be waking me up.
Bus would be gone. Chris was a very smart man.
He didn't want to be there when I woke up.
I mean, Martin, right, smart, and so you know, he
(05:51):
didn't want to be there when I got up, and
so they would be waking me up. And so now
I'm yelling at them because I am disconnected from here
because I don't understand what anxiety actually is and what
it isn't and I couldn't reconnect with myself and that's
also part of the neurology and the physiology of it.
(06:12):
But you can reconnect to yourself. And so they would
then miss a bus. Then that's just set my whole
day just down a complete wrong way. And so what
happened is I just got this idea that maybe if
I moved fast enough when the alarm rang, that I
(06:34):
could move fast enough and beat the anxiety. That maybe
if the alarm rang and I launched myself out of
bed like a rocket ship, like literally like NASA five
four three two one, that if I launched myself, maybe
I wouldn't be in that bed when the anxiety and
the depression and the overwhelm hit. And it worked. And
(06:56):
what it taught me, and this has been the thing
that has really defined a lot of my career, is
that you can build a skill in life where you
learn to not let your emotions and fears about things
dictate what you do. That you are not defined by
(07:16):
how you feel. You are not defined by your emotion
in the moment. I mean, if you really think about it,
you can't be courageous without fear. You can't display confidence
without self doubt.
Speaker 1 (07:26):
One of the things that I say to our daughter
all the time is that courage is not the absence
of fear. It's when you do it anyway. Yes, So
it's not not feeling when we're talking about our grandparents,
so we're talking about taking a test, you know, like,
it's not Yolanda not feeling it. That that's not courage, right,
it's when we feel it and we do it anyway. Yes,
(07:50):
I'm curious, what was the what was that impetus to
make you even say to come up with the.
Speaker 3 (07:57):
Okay, yeah, okay, this is so So it's like, okay,
so I was sitting in my living room and the
kids have gone to bed, and Chris again, smart man,
know where to be found. And have you ever had
a moment where you're giving yourself a pep talk? I mean,
that is a low moment. It's one thing if you're
(08:17):
giving me advice, but if you're having to talk to yourself. Right.
So I'm sitting there, I'm like, all right, that's it,
mel tomorrow morning. Tomorrow morning, it's a new you. Tomorrow morning,
you're calling your parents and you're telling them what's happened.
Tomorrow morning. You're gonna start exercising. Tomorrow morning. You got
to look for a job. Well, I keep ticking off
the list and then I get to and by God,
(08:39):
tomorrow morning, when that alarm rings, woman, you're not going
to lay there in bed like a human pot roast
marinating in fear. You are going to get up and
get those kids on that bus. And at that exact moment,
a rocket ship shot across the television screen at the
end of a commercial, and it gave me this hair
brain idea. That's it. It must be a sign from God.
(09:04):
Tomorrow morning, when the alarm rings, I'm just gonna launch
myself out of bed like a rocket ship. Now. I
had had four Bourbon Manhattan that night. That's probably you
know what also opened me up to it. But I
actually do believe it was divine intervention. There is no
other explanation because the idea is absurd. And the very
(09:26):
next morning, when the alarm ring. That's what I remembered,
and I tried it and it changed my life. And
it led to this belief that your one decision away
from a different life, that you still have to do
the work and five four three two one is going
to help you push through the work. But you know,
I remember when Soy turned to me and she was
(09:51):
in eighth grade, and she said, I'm going to go
back to Cambodia, like we had visited her grandmother who
were in seventh grade. Rather had she was as a widow.
My husband's mom went over to Cambodia and started to volunteer,
and we went over to visit her on Christmas. And
when we were leaving, so I was like, I'm going
to go back, and I'm like, okay, well that was
(10:11):
a pretty big vacation, and you know, I don't think
that's going to happen for it.
Speaker 4 (10:15):
No.
Speaker 3 (10:15):
She's like, no, no, no, I'm going back next year and
I'm going to teach in that school. And I was
like okay, and doubted her. But when I introduced her
to you, this is a woman of conviction. And maybe
it's also because of the distance that whether it was
because I was emotionally unavailable, or when we were struggling
(10:38):
and my career took off, like my ambition was largely
about paying bills, largely about getting the kids back into
town soccer, largely about restoring all of the savings that
we had blown. And so I think it also created
and sawyer this like I can't rely on you anyway,
and you can't tell me what to do because you're
not around either or you're not around emotionally, And so
(11:01):
it created this like, you know, I can do this
in her and I'll be darned. She went to the
principal of her school and she worked it out with them,
and that next year she went back and spent two
months living in Cambodia and took a leave of absence
from eighth grade. And it changed your life. And then
she said, I'm going to go do it again.
Speaker 2 (11:21):
Scrolling won't change your life, but subscribing just might tap
that button and stay connected to conversations that can't.
Speaker 1 (11:30):
Now back to my legacy.
Speaker 2 (11:32):
Meliger new book, the Let Them Theory. It encourages people
to just let control go over other people's choices. And
the part that I love is that you said it
helped to heal and fortify your relationship with your daughter.
Can you share both the theory and how it brought
you closer together?
Speaker 3 (11:48):
Absolutely so. The let them theory is a simple mindset
tool that helps you identify literally in a moment, what's
in your control and what's not your control, and the
way that you use it is very simple. If you're
in a situation and some other person is stressing you
out or upsetting you or offending you, or you're worried
about them, or they're treating you poorly, you literally say
(12:10):
let them because the number one thing in light that
you will never, ever, ever ever be able to control
is another human being. You can't control what they think,
you can't control what they do. You cannot control how
they feel, period, and any psychologists will tell you that
any time that you spend trying to only makes you
feel more stressed, out, frustrated, and out of control and
(12:34):
the problem for all of us. And I didn't learn
this so I was fifty four years old. If I
had known this way back when, I would literally not
have been a walking red flag for most of my life.
I would not have taken my stress out of my family.
I would have been more peaceful and more powerful because
I had no idea how much power I'd given to
(12:56):
other people, and neither nobody does, because we don't understand
how we're turning other people into the problem. And I've
got very important and exciting information, and it says, if
you feel tired in life, if you are frustrated, if
you're stuck, if you're stressed out, if you feel like
you never have time for yourself, if you're just not
(13:18):
as happy as you'd like to be, the problem isn't you.
The problem is you're unknowingly giving power to other people,
and you do it in four ways. You allow them
to stress you out, yep, You worry about and you
manage what they're thinking. You navigate your life based on
their moods and their opinions and their disappointment and their
(13:38):
guilt and their expectations. And you paralyze yourself because you're
chronically comparing yourself to them and telling yourself that if
they're successful or they're this, then I can't have it,
and it's simply not true. And what they'll let them.
Theory does is that any situation that you're in and
you're going to use it with you of family, more
than anybody, because I think family teaches you how to
(13:59):
love people you hate. Sometimes you gotta let them because
you're not going to change them. And what you will
learn as you start to use this is people only
change when they feel like changing. People only change when
they're ready to change. People only change when they're ready
to do the hard work to change. And the other
(14:21):
piece that you have to embrace is that we think
worrying about or pressuring or judging or pushing people to
change motivates people to change. It's actually the opposite. If
you look at the wiring of a human being, everybody
has a fundamental need for control. When you're in control
of what you're thinking about, in your decisions and your
future and the environment that you're in, you actually feel safe.
(14:47):
And the problem is if Martin's doing something that is
worrying me. Now, his behavior is something I want to control.
But Martin has the same need to control his life
as I do. So when I start to push on
Martin or suggests that Martin should do this or should
do that, what does Martin do? Martin pushes back because
(15:07):
he needs to be in control. And I didn't realize
that I was creating so much unnecessary friction and frustration
and distance with people in my life. I didn't realize
how much time and energy I was losing, because you know,
let's just take a simple example. You're at the grocery
store and there's five people in front of you, and
(15:31):
there's one cashew. You've all been there, right, yes, And
immediately the stress rises up inside you, and then all
of a sudden you get agitated, and then you start
thinking why are they not calling it? And then you're
looking around, and then you start thinking you can run
the store better than any of them, right, And now
(15:53):
let's just stop and actually really look at what this is.
This is you giving power to something that you do
not control. And when you do that, a number of
things happen. Number one did you notice is the stress
goes up, your life force energy goes out. So you
are allowing stupid, meaningless, all kinds of irritating people that
(16:19):
are beneath you and not worth your time and energy.
You are allowing it to exhaust you and you don't
have to. And the solution is just to say let them,
and immediately you feel peace because what you're doing is
you're tapping into a tremendous, like I feel like I've
got everybody's ancestors with me. Because this is an application
(16:40):
of stoicism, of Buddhism, of radical acceptance, of detachment, theory
of literally not reacting and staying in your peace and
then something interesting happens. You say the second part, which
is let me, can you remind myself that in any situation,
(17:02):
I have power because there are three things I can control.
I can control what I think about. Next, I can
control what I do or I don't do. Because you
can leave the supermarket, you could if you never have
time to talk to your friends, you could pick up
the phone and call your friend or your grandma. You
could practice meditation, you could say a prayer. If you say,
(17:25):
let me and remind yourself that you have power, that right,
and so that's what it is.
Speaker 1 (17:31):
And also you said still let you know all of
these different ancestors. Also this also is you're bringing in
the ancestor of Martin Luther King Junior in the whole
civil rights movement. Yes, because I think what people also
forget is that, you know, they just see kind of
one one step of you know, civil disobedience is just
(17:53):
one step in the process. But before, when you're talking
about lunch counters, you're talking about the free Yes, they
were they trained, Yes, you know they didn't just go
and you know and so and non reactive. Yes, and
it was a lot of what exactly that you're talking
about and let them Like this is like they're going
(18:13):
to do this. Yes, I you know, I choose, I
choose how then I will respond to that. And what
I also think is important is like you have to
it is training. Yes, it is is you know, you
have to think about it and you have to.
Speaker 3 (18:30):
Yes, it is disciplined. And here's the other thing it
is because a lot of people hear this and then
they'll say, wait, you're just allowing people to walk all
over you. You're allowing people to abuse you. And I'm like,
oh no, it's the opposite, because you're actually allowing it.
Now when you say let them, it's almost like you're
allowing it without allowing it, because you're saying, I see
(18:52):
the reality here, and I see that I can't control this,
and so I choose my response because I know I
do have power. And oftentimes the best response is no response.
The best response is peace. And we give too much
energy and too much fear into things we can't control,
(19:12):
and in doing so, we blind ourselves to the fact
that you always have control. And whether you're talking about
a family dynamic, or you're talking about a community, or
you're talking about a world at large, I see. I
find it just so sad and fascinating that we always
let the most challenging and toxic behavior seem to get
(19:33):
all the power. But I actually think the opposite is true.
I believe that the person that is peaceful, I believe
that the person that understands their power. I believe the
person who actually constantly reminds themselves wait a minute, I
have power here because I have power over my thoughts.
I have power over my actions. I have power over
(19:54):
how I allow my emotions to rise and fall. And
it's inside that power that any single person can change
something for the better. And you know that's.
Speaker 1 (20:06):
What because you're responding and not reacting. Yes, and responding
is when you come from a place of power.
Speaker 3 (20:13):
Yes. And it's also how you take personal responsibility. Yeah,
let's talk about responsibility, because the word responsibility is just
the ability to respond and everybody has that. And so
when you really remind yourself of that now you can
(20:34):
be the person that changes everything, because it just takes
one person to change the energy and dynamic in a family.
It takes one person who cares enough to change the
politics in a country. It takes one person to just
shift everything. And if you don't like where you're at,
(20:54):
or you don't like where your family's at, or you
don't like something in a relationship, or you don't like
something in the world at large, that one person is you.
And as long as you give your time and energy,
and you give other people power, their opinions, all of it,
none of what you can throw. You are not present
to the power you actually have and the time and
(21:16):
the energy that you need to create the change that
you're capable of change.
Speaker 4 (21:22):
Thank you for joining us. If you enjoy today's conversation, subscribe, share,
and follow us on at my Legacy Movement on social
media and YouTube. New episodes drop every Tuesday, with bonus
content every Thursday. At its core, this podcast honors doctor
King's vision of the beloved community and the power of connection.
(21:43):
A Legacy Plus studio production distributed by iHeartMedia creator and
executive producer Suzanne Hayward Come Executive producer Lisa Lyle. Listen
on the iHeartRadio app, or wherever you get your podcasts.
September marks a fresh start, not just for students, but
for all of us. It's a chance to reset, refocus,
and reconnect with what matters on my legacy. I few
guests have captured that spirit, and better than the one
and only Mail Robins. Here's some of her best advice
on overcoming procrastination, managing anxiety, and protecting your peace.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Mail, your career is rooted in reinvention and in resilience,
but you've also shared that you hit rock bottom and
that was your catalyst for change. Can you tell us
about that.
Speaker 3 (00:33):
I screwed up a lot of stuff. I mean, I
had adhd in dyslexia and was not diagnosed till I
was forty seven. And when that happens to you, what
you develop is anxiety. And so I had a chronic
struggle with anxiety as a young mom. When Sawyer was born,
I had severe postpartum depression. I could barely even hold
(00:55):
her for the first three months of her life because
of the medication and the severity of what I was
dealing with, and it impacted our relationship. And when I
was forty one years old, I was sitting here listening
to Sawyer talking about the radio show, and I'm so
(01:18):
thrilled that she has a wonderful memory of it because
that was during a moment in time where my life
was falling apart. And when that happens to you, as
a parent, you do everything that you can to try
to shield the reality of what's happening from your children,
because that's not their burden to carry. And what was
happening for us is my husband had gone into the
restaurant business and it was really good until it wasn't.
(01:40):
And at the age of forty one with three kids
under the age of ten, so you know, I'm gonna
have to do the math. You were under ten years old.
We were eight hundred thousand dollars in debt and leans
on the house, and I was rising to the moment
like a dysfunctional human being. I was drinking myself into
the ground. I was blaming everything on my husband, right
(02:02):
because he tried to do this and the simplest things
like getting out of bed, opening up bills, asking for help.
I couldn't make myself do any of it. And I
was the worst parent. I mean there were times where
she would come downstairs and this I know you do remember,
(02:25):
and she would find Chris and I a sleep in
the living room chair because we had passed out from Bourbon,
because we were trying to just suppress all the fear
because it was just so overwhelming. I mean, when you
can barely put gas in the tank and food on
the table, I mean, that's a cute level of stress.
And then you add on to it the sense that
(02:47):
you're failing your kids and you're about to lose everything.
And so for me, it was paralysis. And what happened is,
you know, I have learned from from people who are
first murdered that researched this. There's a saying in addiction
treatment and psychiatry that people only get sober when being
(03:09):
drunk is harder than facing the things that you're scared
to face. And what I've also learned about myself and
human beings in general, is people only change when they're
ready to change. And if somebody in your life is
not changing or they're exhibiting challenging behavior, it's typically because
(03:33):
they can't right now. There's some skill that's missing, there's
hope that's missing, and for me, that was a big one.
What was missing for me is this hope that anything
that I did would actually matter, because when your problems
feel that big, like, what happens is despair sets in
and it's very hard to motivate yourself when you feel
like it's not going to matter anyway. And that's how
(03:54):
I felt, and just.
Speaker 2 (03:55):
A fall up question and what did anxiety mean to you?
Speaker 3 (03:58):
And what does it mean to you today? So anxiety
then was this wave that would hit me and paralyze me.
Paralyzed me. It was like being nervous about something, but
then you can't turn the nerves off. And anxiety has
a purpose. I mean, if you and I are driving
down the road and a truck swerves in the lane,
(04:19):
your body floods with adrenaline, your heart starts to raise,
and you immediately turn the wheel. That's anxiety. It's an
alarm in your body, and it's playing an important role.
It signals you that there's something that you need to
pay attention to. Now I didn't understand that nobody does.
And so what I of course did is I would
feel these stressed out feelings and then I would go
up in my head and I would start to cycle, well,
(04:41):
what if this happens and what if that happens? And
when you do that you make it bigger and bigger
and bigger and bigger, and then it becomes not a feeling,
but it becomes the state in which you are going
through life. Because what happened for me is that alarm
would go off and I'd feel the wave of anxiety
because I'm eight hundred grand in debt. I basically like
(05:01):
feel like my life is about to implode. And so
what do I do? I rot in bed, I stare
at the ceiling. I think about all my problems. I
then hit the snooze button, which, by the way, is
making procrastination the first decision of your day. I mean,
I mean, how are you going to win in life
if your first decision is I think I'll just avoid
getting out of bed. And what happened is I would
(05:24):
literally hit the snooze button four or five times in
the morning, and then these guys would miss a bus.
You probably don't remember this, but then I would thank God,
and then I would come racing out of the bedroom
like a lunatic because they would be waking me up.
Bus would be gone. Chris was a very smart man.
He didn't want to be there when I woke up.
I mean, Martin, right, smart, and so you know, he
(05:51):
didn't want to be there when I got up, and
so they would be waking me up. And so now
I'm yelling at them because I am disconnected from here
because I don't understand what anxiety actually is and what
it isn't and I couldn't reconnect with myself and that's
also part of the neurology and the physiology of it.
(06:12):
But you can reconnect to yourself. And so they would
then miss a bus. Then that's just set my whole
day just down a complete wrong way. And so what
happened is I just got this idea that maybe if
I moved fast enough when the alarm rang, that I
(06:34):
could move fast enough and beat the anxiety. That maybe
if the alarm rang and I launched myself out of
bed like a rocket ship, like literally like NASA five
four three two one, that if I launched myself, maybe
I wouldn't be in that bed when the anxiety and
the depression and the overwhelm hit. And it worked. And
(06:56):
what it taught me, and this has been the thing
that has really defined a lot of my career, is
that you can build a skill in life where you
learn to not let your emotions and fears about things
dictate what you do. That you are not defined by
(07:16):
how you feel. You are not defined by your emotion
in the moment. I mean, if you really think about it,
you can't be courageous without fear. You can't display confidence
without self doubt.
Speaker 1 (07:26):
One of the things that I say to our daughter
all the time is that courage is not the absence
of fear. It's when you do it anyway. Yes, So
it's not not feeling when we're talking about our grandparents,
so we're talking about taking a test, you know, like,
it's not Yolanda not feeling it. That that's not courage, right,
it's when we feel it and we do it anyway. Yes,
(07:50):
I'm curious, what was the what was that impetus to
make you even say to come up with the.
Speaker 3 (07:57):
Okay, yeah, okay, this is so So it's like, okay,
so I was sitting in my living room and the
kids have gone to bed, and Chris again, smart man,
know where to be found. And have you ever had
a moment where you're giving yourself a pep talk? I mean,
that is a low moment. It's one thing if you're
(08:17):
giving me advice, but if you're having to talk to yourself. Right.
So I'm sitting there, I'm like, all right, that's it,
mel tomorrow morning. Tomorrow morning, it's a new you. Tomorrow morning,
you're calling your parents and you're telling them what's happened.
Tomorrow morning. You're gonna start exercising. Tomorrow morning. You got
to look for a job. Well, I keep ticking off
the list and then I get to and by God,
(08:39):
tomorrow morning, when that alarm rings, woman, you're not going
to lay there in bed like a human pot roast
marinating in fear. You are going to get up and
get those kids on that bus. And at that exact moment,
a rocket ship shot across the television screen at the
end of a commercial, and it gave me this hair
brain idea. That's it. It must be a sign from God.
(09:04):
Tomorrow morning, when the alarm rings, I'm just gonna launch
myself out of bed like a rocket ship. Now. I
had had four Bourbon Manhattan that night. That's probably you
know what also opened me up to it. But I
actually do believe it was divine intervention. There is no
other explanation because the idea is absurd. And the very
(09:26):
next morning, when the alarm ring. That's what I remembered,
and I tried it and it changed my life. And
it led to this belief that your one decision away
from a different life, that you still have to do
the work and five four three two one is going
to help you push through the work. But you know,
I remember when Soy turned to me and she was
(09:51):
in eighth grade, and she said, I'm going to go
back to Cambodia, like we had visited her grandmother who
were in seventh grade. Rather had she was as a widow.
My husband's mom went over to Cambodia and started to volunteer,
and we went over to visit her on Christmas. And
when we were leaving, so I was like, I'm going
to go back, and I'm like, okay, well that was
(10:11):
a pretty big vacation, and you know, I don't think
that's going to happen for it.
Speaker 4 (10:15):
No.
Speaker 3 (10:15):
She's like, no, no, no, I'm going back next year and
I'm going to teach in that school. And I was
like okay, and doubted her. But when I introduced her
to you, this is a woman of conviction. And maybe
it's also because of the distance that whether it was
because I was emotionally unavailable, or when we were struggling
(10:38):
and my career took off, like my ambition was largely
about paying bills, largely about getting the kids back into
town soccer, largely about restoring all of the savings that
we had blown. And so I think it also created
and sawyer this like I can't rely on you anyway,
and you can't tell me what to do because you're
not around either or you're not around emotionally, And so
(11:01):
it created this like, you know, I can do this
in her and I'll be darned. She went to the
principal of her school and she worked it out with them,
and that next year she went back and spent two
months living in Cambodia and took a leave of absence
from eighth grade. And it changed your life. And then
she said, I'm going to go do it again.
Speaker 2 (11:21):
Scrolling won't change your life, but subscribing just might tap
that button and stay connected to conversations that can't.
Speaker 1 (11:30):
Now back to my legacy.
Speaker 2 (11:32):
Meliger new book, the Let Them Theory. It encourages people
to just let control go over other people's choices. And
the part that I love is that you said it
helped to heal and fortify your relationship with your daughter.
Can you share both the theory and how it brought
you closer together?
Speaker 3 (11:48):
Absolutely so. The let them theory is a simple mindset
tool that helps you identify literally in a moment, what's
in your control and what's not your control, and the
way that you use it is very simple. If you're
in a situation and some other person is stressing you
out or upsetting you or offending you, or you're worried
about them, or they're treating you poorly, you literally say
(12:10):
let them because the number one thing in light that
you will never, ever, ever ever be able to control
is another human being. You can't control what they think,
you can't control what they do. You cannot control how
they feel, period, and any psychologists will tell you that
any time that you spend trying to only makes you
feel more stressed, out, frustrated, and out of control and
(12:34):
the problem for all of us. And I didn't learn
this so I was fifty four years old. If I
had known this way back when, I would literally not
have been a walking red flag for most of my life.
I would not have taken my stress out of my family.
I would have been more peaceful and more powerful because
I had no idea how much power I'd given to
(12:56):
other people, and neither nobody does, because we don't understand
how we're turning other people into the problem. And I've
got very important and exciting information, and it says, if
you feel tired in life, if you are frustrated, if
you're stuck, if you're stressed out, if you feel like
you never have time for yourself, if you're just not
(13:18):
as happy as you'd like to be, the problem isn't you.
The problem is you're unknowingly giving power to other people,
and you do it in four ways. You allow them
to stress you out, yep, You worry about and you
manage what they're thinking. You navigate your life based on
their moods and their opinions and their disappointment and their
(13:38):
guilt and their expectations. And you paralyze yourself because you're
chronically comparing yourself to them and telling yourself that if
they're successful or they're this, then I can't have it,
and it's simply not true. And what they'll let them.
Theory does is that any situation that you're in and
you're going to use it with you of family, more
than anybody, because I think family teaches you how to
(13:59):
love people you hate. Sometimes you gotta let them because
you're not going to change them. And what you will
learn as you start to use this is people only
change when they feel like changing. People only change when
they're ready to change. People only change when they're ready
to do the hard work to change. And the other
(14:21):
piece that you have to embrace is that we think
worrying about or pressuring or judging or pushing people to
change motivates people to change. It's actually the opposite. If
you look at the wiring of a human being, everybody
has a fundamental need for control. When you're in control
of what you're thinking about, in your decisions and your
future and the environment that you're in, you actually feel safe.
(14:47):
And the problem is if Martin's doing something that is
worrying me. Now, his behavior is something I want to control.
But Martin has the same need to control his life
as I do. So when I start to push on
Martin or suggests that Martin should do this or should
do that, what does Martin do? Martin pushes back because
(15:07):
he needs to be in control. And I didn't realize
that I was creating so much unnecessary friction and frustration
and distance with people in my life. I didn't realize
how much time and energy I was losing, because you know,
let's just take a simple example. You're at the grocery
store and there's five people in front of you, and
(15:31):
there's one cashew. You've all been there, right, yes, And
immediately the stress rises up inside you, and then all
of a sudden you get agitated, and then you start
thinking why are they not calling it? And then you're
looking around, and then you start thinking you can run
the store better than any of them, right, And now
(15:53):
let's just stop and actually really look at what this is.
This is you giving power to something that you do
not control. And when you do that, a number of
things happen. Number one did you notice is the stress
goes up, your life force energy goes out. So you
are allowing stupid, meaningless, all kinds of irritating people that
(16:19):
are beneath you and not worth your time and energy.
You are allowing it to exhaust you and you don't
have to. And the solution is just to say let them,
and immediately you feel peace because what you're doing is
you're tapping into a tremendous, like I feel like I've
got everybody's ancestors with me. Because this is an application
(16:40):
of stoicism, of Buddhism, of radical acceptance, of detachment, theory
of literally not reacting and staying in your peace and
then something interesting happens. You say the second part, which
is let me, can you remind myself that in any situation,
(17:02):
I have power because there are three things I can control.
I can control what I think about. Next, I can
control what I do or I don't do. Because you
can leave the supermarket, you could if you never have
time to talk to your friends, you could pick up
the phone and call your friend or your grandma. You
could practice meditation, you could say a prayer. If you say,
(17:25):
let me and remind yourself that you have power, that right,
and so that's what it is.
Speaker 1 (17:31):
And also you said still let you know all of
these different ancestors. Also this also is you're bringing in
the ancestor of Martin Luther King Junior in the whole
civil rights movement. Yes, because I think what people also
forget is that, you know, they just see kind of
one one step of you know, civil disobedience is just
(17:53):
one step in the process. But before, when you're talking
about lunch counters, you're talking about the free Yes, they
were they trained, Yes, you know they didn't just go
and you know and so and non reactive. Yes, and
it was a lot of what exactly that you're talking
about and let them Like this is like they're going
(18:13):
to do this. Yes, I you know, I choose, I
choose how then I will respond to that. And what
I also think is important is like you have to
it is training. Yes, it is is you know, you
have to think about it and you have to.
Speaker 3 (18:30):
Yes, it is disciplined. And here's the other thing it
is because a lot of people hear this and then
they'll say, wait, you're just allowing people to walk all
over you. You're allowing people to abuse you. And I'm like,
oh no, it's the opposite, because you're actually allowing it.
Now when you say let them, it's almost like you're
allowing it without allowing it, because you're saying, I see
(18:52):
the reality here, and I see that I can't control this,
and so I choose my response because I know I
do have power. And oftentimes the best response is no response.
The best response is peace. And we give too much
energy and too much fear into things we can't control,
(19:12):
and in doing so, we blind ourselves to the fact
that you always have control. And whether you're talking about
a family dynamic, or you're talking about a community, or
you're talking about a world at large, I see. I
find it just so sad and fascinating that we always
let the most challenging and toxic behavior seem to get
(19:33):
all the power. But I actually think the opposite is true.
I believe that the person that is peaceful, I believe
that the person that understands their power. I believe the
person who actually constantly reminds themselves wait a minute, I
have power here because I have power over my thoughts.
I have power over my actions. I have power over
(19:54):
how I allow my emotions to rise and fall. And
it's inside that power that any single person can change
something for the better. And you know that's.
Speaker 1 (20:06):
What because you're responding and not reacting. Yes, and responding
is when you come from a place of power.
Speaker 3 (20:13):
Yes. And it's also how you take personal responsibility. Yeah,
let's talk about responsibility, because the word responsibility is just
the ability to respond and everybody has that. And so
when you really remind yourself of that now you can
(20:34):
be the person that changes everything, because it just takes
one person to change the energy and dynamic in a family.
It takes one person who cares enough to change the
politics in a country. It takes one person to just
shift everything. And if you don't like where you're at,
(20:54):
or you don't like where your family's at, or you
don't like something in a relationship, or you don't like
something in the world at large, that one person is you.
And as long as you give your time and energy,
and you give other people power, their opinions, all of it,
none of what you can throw. You are not present
to the power you actually have and the time and
(21:16):
the energy that you need to create the change that
you're capable of change.
Speaker 4 (21:22):
Thank you for joining us. If you enjoy today's conversation, subscribe, share,
and follow us on at my Legacy Movement on social
media and YouTube. New episodes drop every Tuesday, with bonus
content every Thursday. At its core, this podcast honors doctor
King's vision of the beloved community and the power of connection.
(21:43):
A Legacy Plus studio production distributed by iHeartMedia creator and
executive producer Suzanne Hayward Come Executive producer Lisa Lyle. Listen
on the iHeartRadio app, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Hosts And Creators
Craig Kielburger
Marc Kielburger
Martin Luther King III
Arndrea Waters King
Popular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.